Chapter 1 A Premonition

Before you knew it, the end of the year was fast approaching, and the streets were increasingly filled with the atmosphere of the New Year.

In the coldest season of the year, it would be perfectly normal for a friend to invite you out for a hot pot dinner, right?

But that evening, Feng Bujue, invited by Xiao Tan to a private room in a restaurant, felt a strange premonition…

Glug glug—

Inside the private room sat three people, but no one spoke… All that could be heard was the bubbling of the hot pot broth.

“Looks like… I have to be the one to break the ice…” Finally, Feng Bujue was the first to break the silence.

“Why are you so serious?” Bao Qing turned to look at him, questioning, “Did you forget your wallet?”

“You don’t have to keep acting.” Feng Bujue’s tone remained serious, “I saw through it the moment I walked in… This is a *Hongmen* Banquet tonight.”

“Jue-ge…” Xiao Tan’s mouth twitched a couple of times as he replied, “This meal isn’t really that expensive, and the room fee is okay too… Besides, I was planning on treating anyway.”

“Hmph…” Feng Bujue snorted upon hearing this, “Xiao Tan, Bao Daren…” His gaze swept over the two of them respectively, “I understand all of your habits, little actions, and subconscious micro-expressions… better than anyone…” He ignored the two of them talking about the bill and continued on his own, “From the moment I walked in until now, the two of you haven’t said more than ten sentences combined, and your eyes have met no more than three times; Xiao Tan, a person who rarely crosses his legs, has crossed and uncrossed them twice, and played with his fingers three times… And Bao Daren, as someone who pays great attention to dining etiquette, has looked at his phone five times…”

He said all of this in one breath, then looked at the two dumbfounded faces and asked in a deep voice, “You… received an order from Chief Gu to arrest me, didn’t you?”

“No,” Bao Qing answered very decisively.

“Oh?” Feng Bujue raised an eyebrow, “Could it be… you’re here to kill me?”

“Hehe…” Bao Qing chuckled twice more, “I can’t kill you, you’ve practiced the *Dunjia Tianshu*, and you also have special abilities, I can’t possibly take you down alone and unarmed.”

“Isn’t there still Xiao Tan?” Feng Bujue glanced at Xiao Tan, “I heard that your family has cultivated immortality for generations, right?”

“Uh…” Xiao Tan didn’t even know how to respond, “Actually…” So he simply bypassed this nonsensical question and directly stated his purpose, “I invited you here today to give you wedding invitations…” As he said this, he took a red envelope out of his pocket and placed it in front of Jue-ge, “Because Bao Daren arrived earlier than you, and he has things to do later, I already gave him his invitation earlier.”

Silence descended once again.

After a brief exchange, Feng Bujue’s reasoning had been overturned; he didn’t say anything for a long time, and the atmosphere became somewhat awkward, just like the lyrics said – most afraid of the air suddenly becoming still.

“Um…” After a moment, Jue-ge’s serious tone returned to its usual lazy state, “Then why… haven’t you two been talking much since I came in?”

Bao Qing replied calmly, “You’re half an hour late without even an apology, what do you expect to hear after walking in? Do you want us to say ‘It’s okay, we just got here too’?”

“Then what’s with you constantly looking at your phone?” Jue-ge asked again.

“Didn’t Xiao Tan say? I ‘have things to do later’,” Bao Qing replied.

“Work-related?” Feng Bujue asked.

“No comment,” Bao Qing blurted out these four words without even thinking.

“Oh… so it’s work-related,” Jue-ge nodded, then looked at Xiao Tan again, “Hey~ then why do you look so uneasy, like you have a guilty conscience?”

“Um…” Xiao Tan thought for a moment, “On the one hand… it’s because you didn’t say anything to us earlier, and the atmosphere was very oppressive, I thought you had something on your mind, so I kept hesitating to speak; on the other hand…” As he said this, he stood up, “Actually, I’ve been eating a bit too much hot pot these past two days, and my stomach is upset… Since there’s nothing else going on right now, I’ll go to the restroom first.”

After saying that, he covered his stomach and scurried out.

“Damn, if your stomach is upset, can’t you just not eat it?” Feng Bujue rolled his eyes and shouted at Xiao Tan’s retreating figure.

After all that fuss, the other party didn’t have a guilty conscience, but rather shit in his belly.

“There are two kinds of people in this world…” The next second, Bao Qing, while looking down at his phone, complained, “The first kind is those who really like to eat Mexican tortilla wraps, but get severe bloody stools every time they eat them, so they stop eating them altogether; the second kind is those who keep buying new underwear after eating Mexican tortilla wraps and getting severe bloody stools…”

“Ho~” Feng Bujue carefully considered the meaning behind the other party’s words, “Although I think it would be more appropriate to use masturbation as an example here, but you…”

“Hey hey! You’re missing the point, aren’t you?” Bao Qing put down his phone and interrupted Jue-ge, “You see a ‘wedding invitation’ and that’s your reaction? Our buddy is getting married soon, and you’re focusing on the example I used in my complaint?”

“You saying ‘soon’ is a bit inaccurate,” Feng Bujue said, “Technically speaking… he ‘already’ got married, according to the records at the Civil Affairs Bureau, he and Xiao Ling registered a long time ago.”

“Huh?” Bao Qing was dumbfounded this time, “How do you know?” After two seconds, he seemed to have thought of something, “Xiao Tan told you? Hey~ but he didn’t tell me.”

“No no… besides him and Xiao Ling, the two people involved, as well as their respective families, he didn’t tell anyone,” Feng Bujue said, “I found out myself.” He spread out his hands, “You know me, I like to browse government agency databases as a pastime when I have nothing to do; but since last year, your Chief Gu has strictly forbidden me from loitering in the public security and judicial systems, so I have no choice… I can only shift my focus to the civil affairs departments and those semi-bureaucratic organizations… By the way, would you like to hear a few toilet jokes about the Football Association and the Writers Association? I recently came up with dozens of them while taking a dump, and I’m considering using an alias to submit them to the internet to earn some extra money, would you like to be an audience and see how funny they are?”

“I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear that last part…” Bao Qing squinted, “The key is… you knew that Xiao Tan and Xiao Ling registered a long time ago, and you didn’t even tell me?”

“Respect their privacy, wouldn’t it be better for him to tell us himself?” Feng Bujue replied without changing his expression.

“Do you know that you are currently embodying the word ‘shameless’ with your words and actions?” Bao Qing said.

“I respect their privacy very much,” Feng Bujue shrugged, “Look… before he took out the wedding invitation, did I reveal even half a word about the fact that he was already married?”

After hearing this, Bao Qing thought for a long time, and temporarily couldn’t think of any further arguments to refute the other party…

“But, come to think of it… you two really scared me just now,” Feng Bujue said, “I really thought Chief Gu sent you two to take care of me.” As he said this, he also took out his phone and stood up, “Anyway… it’s good that nothing happened, I’m going out to make a phone call.”

“Huh?” Bao Qing turned to look at him, “There are only the two of us here, why do you need to go outside to make a phone call?”

“It’s nothing, because I thought I was ambushed just now, so I took advantage of your inattention to blindly send some messages in my pocket, notify some people, and arrange some backup plans…” Feng Bujue said as he walked, “Since nothing happened now, I’d better cancel those arrangements as soon as possible, of course… they have to hear my voice…”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Bao Qing shook his head, holding his forehead, and interrupted Jue-ge once again, “I didn’t ask…”

Bao Qing had actually witnessed something similar before, back in their high school days…

One day, a boy with a lot of family influence who had a conflict with Feng Bujue asked Feng Bujue to come out for a one-on-one fight. Jue-ge thought the other party would set up an ambush, but he didn’t expect the other party to actually come alone, and he didn’t have any complaints after the one-on-one fight.

At that time, Bao Qing and Xiao Tan, who were hiding in the dark as the “backup plan,” heard Jue-ge say these two sentences to the boy; “How many people know about you coming here today?” “Um… you’d better wait for me to make a few phone calls before you go home.”

After a while, when Bao Qing understood the meaning of those two sentences… he was also afraid for a while.

No one knows how many “backup plans” Feng Bujue has, and no one knows… what he will do, and to what extent.

But everyone has a consensus – if the end of the world suddenly comes one day, and you need to find someone with emergency response measures, you can’t go wrong looking for him… Of course, it can’t be ruled out that you might be treated as emergency food after finding him.

“Hello?” Jue-ge didn’t go too far, the soundproofing of this restaurant was pretty good, so he directly answered the phone in the corridor, “Snow? Ah… it’s me… False alarm, your people don’t need to come over.”

“How heartless~” Snow’s slightly teasing voice came from the phone, “Am I the kind of friend you only contact when you need something?”

“Don’t say it like we have some kind of physical relationship,” Feng Bujue said, “Just say we’re friends who take advantage of each other, or you can omit the word ‘friend’ and I don’t mind.”

“Hehe…” Snow laughed, “Okay~ whatever makes you happy…” He paused, “But since we’re taking advantage of each other… my men made a wasted trip tonight, and it cost a lot of manpower and gas money…”

“Two scripts,” Feng Bujue knew what the other party wanted to say, and didn’t waste any words with him, directly stating the main point.

“Three,” Snow immediately started haggling.

“Two,” Feng Bujue repeated decisively.

“Then they all have to be Sleep Mode,” Snow added.

“Deal,” Jue-ge agreed to the conditions and prepared to hang up, “If there’s nothing else, I…”

“Hey~” Snow raised his voice at this moment, “By the way, just now, I saw a big news item on the game forum that’s related to you.”

“Oh?” Feng Bujue asked, “What is it?”

“‘This evening, Red Cherry Studio released an announcement on its official website, announcing that the super popular player [Xu Huai Shang] terminated her contract with the studio peacefully half a month ago; the news caused an uproar in the entire gaming circle. According to sources, the contracts of star players at this level have very detailed provisions regarding termination; the news of termination must be first released by the studio after all termination matters have been fully processed by both parties. If the player herself discloses relevant information before the studio, even if the contract period has expired, she will still bear the corresponding liability for breach of contract. And this termination process generally lasts up to fifteen working days… It seems that losing their pillar is a very big blow to Red Cherry, so they have been dragging this announcement until the very last moment before making it public.’” Snow read the news report verbatim.

“So… what does this have to do with me?” Feng Bujue replied calmly.

Although he was calm on the surface, in reality… when asking this question, Jue-ge had already felt a slight ominous premonition rising in his heart.

“Hehe…” Snow was waiting for this question, he smiled sinisterly and replied smoothly, “‘Our reporter interviewed the person involved, Xu Huai Shang, in the form of online chat at the first opportunity. When asked which studio she would join next, Xu Huai Shang said that she could not join other game studios within the next six months due to non-compete clauses. The reporter then asked her if she would take this opportunity to enter the entertainment industry, and Xu Huai Shang said that she would not leave the gaming industry, and would not enter the entertainment industry even if she left one day; finally, when the reporter asked her about her plans for these six months, she replied that she was considering joining some strong non-professional player guilds. When asked which guild she was most likely to consider, Xu Huai Shang’s response was – Hell Front.’”